


Que j'aim mout

by ineptshieldmaid



Category: Arthurian Mythology
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-12-24
Updated: 2008-12-24
Packaged: 2018-01-25 02:34:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 509
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1626962
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ineptshieldmaid/pseuds/ineptshieldmaid
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Whom I Love Most: Yvain/Gawain. In which the author makes free with the words and characters of Chretien's 'Chevalier au Lion'</p>
            </blockquote>





	Que j'aim mout

**Author's Note:**

> I couldn't let this prompt go unanswered. Apologies for liberal and probably erroneous use of Old French.
> 
> Written for tarimanveri

 

 

 _Que j'aim mout, ço estes vous._ They were his words, not yours. It was always Yvain, and never you, who weighed up and took stock. It was Yvain, and never you, who wanted to know the measure of each thing and keep them all in balance.

For your part, you called him _compeignon_ , and that was enough. You thought he understood.

* * *

_Qu'il aim mout_ , but it was not love of you that ruined him. For love of you, he lost his wife. For love of a woman, he gave up his life: gave up his sword, his name, his place at your side. You collect your companion's clothes from the edge of the forest, and it feels like a funeral with no corpse. Tabard, scabbard, sword and shield, you gather them all up. You keep the clothes folded, the shield covered, the sword sheathed, but they are no armour against betrayal.

* * *

Your cousins - four sons and a daughter - come all together to Camelot, spilling tales of giants and hostages, bargains and bride-pledges. And they spill tales of a _Chevalier au Lion_ , a knight strong and beautiful of body, but not so noble of mind that he would not have left them to perish, save that they begged in your name.

You need not ask how he spoke of you: _Monseigneur Gauvain, que j'aim mout_. But the Knight of the Lion was not your companion, and relatives rescued and tales told cannot fill the tunic or lift the sword which lie by your bedside. 

_Qui estes le Chevalier au Lion?_ You answer that you do not know him.

* * *

You do not doubt that you could kill the Knight with the Lion, if you could only best him. But just as Yvain had been your perfectly matched companion, so now is the Knight with the Lion your perfectly balanced opponent. It was not in your power to hold the one to his life, and nor is it in your power to bring the other to his death.

 _Si je vous ai presté du mien bien m'en avés rendu le conte et du chatel et de la monte,_ you say to him. The debt in betrayal, and the payment in loyalty. _Gauvain ai non,_ you add, although it seems inconceivable that he should not know. _Qui estes vous?_ you press, to seal your pact anew.

 _Je sui Yvains, qui plus vous aim com hom du monde_. And there, you have all the answer you need.

* * *

The Knight with the Lion is gone again before you have the chance to know him. He sends you word, as he always does: he has won his wife again, and defends her castle and her fountain against all comers.

A year and a day since last you saw him, you pour the water on the rock and call up the storm. The Knight with the Lion rides to meet you, and there will be no mistaking this time. You embrace him and call him _compeignon_ , and Yvain kisses you and calls you _Gauvain, que j'aim mout_. 

 


End file.
